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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Measuring the Rate of Lipolysis in Ex Vivo Murine Adipose Tissue and Primary Preadipocytes Differentiated In Vitro
Published on: March 17, 2023
Impact of perturbed pyruvate metabolism on adipocyte triglyceride accumulation
Yaguang Si1, Hai Shi, Kyongbum Lee
1Department of Biology, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA.
Abstract:
This study aimed to test the hypothesis that adipocyte TG accumulation could be altered by specifically perturbing pyruvate metabolism. We treated cultured 3T3-L1 adipocytes with chemical inhibitors of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and pyruvate carboxylase (PC), and characterized their global effects on intermediary metabolism using metabolic flux and isotopomer analysis. Inhibiting the enzymes over several days did not alter the adipocyte differentiation program as assessed by the expression levels of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma and glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase. The main metabolic effects were to up-regulate intracellular lipolysis and decrease TG accumulation. Inhibiting PC also up-regulated glycolysis. Flux estimates indicated that the reduction in TG was due to decreased de novo fatty acid synthesis. Exogenous addition of free fatty acids dose-dependently increased the cellular TG level in the inhibitor-treated adipocytes, but not in untreated control cells. The results of this study support our hypothesis regarding the critical role of pyruvate reactions in TG synthesis.
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